


The Fanciest of Bloodstains

by TheDarkFlygon



Series: Autumn Fever (Whumptober 2020) [10]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Diamond & Pearl & Platinum | Pokemon Diamond Pearl Platinum Versions
Genre: Blood and Injury, Developing Relationship, Dorks in Love, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Spelunking, Swearing, The Underground (Pokemon), Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:47:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27068890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDarkFlygon/pseuds/TheDarkFlygon
Summary: No, his flesh wound isn't worth staining a who-knows-how-much-it-costs handkerchief with his blood.(Not like she'll ever want to admit it).
Relationships: Tougan | Byron/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Autumn Fever (Whumptober 2020) [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1966432





	The Fanciest of Bloodstains

**Author's Note:**

> I should've called this oneshot collection "GCB Fever", because most of it so far has been GCB content.  
> (Just in case you've never been around Glass Cannon Blues before: this oneshot is fine for your consumption, since it doesn't spoil anything from the series' main installements. If you like it, you'll probably like my main story for it, Earth Never Stops, which is also about everyone's favorite Gym-leading father & son duo!)
> 
> It's been ages since we've been to Sinnoh, isn't it? I've missed my mining bois and all their little crew, but I especially missed writing Byron. I've had the occasion to write Roark into a couple project (mostly through my expy of him, Pierrick Vanderbrucq, in my original work), but Byron? Not so lucky.  
> I'm still working on and off (mostly off) on STTL chapter 2, so I hope I can make that beast come out before 2020 ends its shitty run.  
> Writing younger Byron is so cool, I forgot how much fun I had when I wrote the flashback in the 9th chapter of ENS. Rachel is also a character I never get to write because, y'know, ENS spoiler stuff, so it's good to be able to write her and her dynamic with Byron. I really missed the Sinnohan part of GCB, man.
> 
> "Tissues" had me stumped because I really didn't want to write a sickfic _again_ , and since it's gonna have to happen with the next prompt fill, I decided to take some liberty with the prompt and talk about another kind of tissues, though I suppose it works better when, in your language, "tissue" and "handkerchief" have the same translation.

He stares at the handkerchief in her hand. It’s the most “rich people” thing he’s ever seen: it’s needlessly soft, has its four sides embroidered with some expensive lace like he’s only seen on pictures (and on her family), even has her initials stitched into it. Seriously, thing’s only meant to be for show. Like, that’s made for rich people to flaunt their massive amounts of cash at the poorer people who weren’t as fortunate.

And yet, she’s _absolutely_ intending on using it for the _least_ elegant purpose possible. He shouldn’t even be surprised anymore, even if it’s always putting him off whenever she pulls it.

“Ya ain’t gonna brush mah blood with that, are ya?” He asks her, incredulous.

Of course, Rachel replies like Rachel always does: straight-to-the-point, simply, with a shrug of the shoulders.

“Why not? It’s not like we’ve brought other tissues with us, is it? We’ve got some bandages, but there’s no use putting them on unless I’ve at least damped some of the blood away.”

She’s got a point, but still. He knows blood’s hard to remove from clothes (Arceus, he can still hear his mother scream after his father for having scraped his knee until it bled and dirtying his pants _again_ , and that was like a decade ago), so he really doesn’t think she should sacrifice a perfectly splendid handkerchief worth something around a thousand Size 99 Prism Spheres for what’s a flesh wound.

No, he isn’t undermining his injuries, this time. He just hurt his arm exploring and now it’s bleeding a bit because the rock was sharp and made a cut when he slipped on something. This isn’t something that requires urgent help or anything. If she’s really that worried, they can just go back to the surface, go back to her Gym Leader house, and patch it up there. It’s not like last time where he broke a rib or two trying to save her from a fall. (Though the kiss he got that day made the pain worth it, in his opinion, but if he ever tells Rachel that, she’s going to claw his head out in a lecture about how his life is worth just as much as hers. He’s been through it before and he doesn’t need to hear it again, even if her voice’s real pretty).

What he’s trying to say is that she doesn’t need to ruin her handkerchief for a cut.

“No, seriously, Rach’, I’ll be fine. It’s nothin’. It’s just a scrape on the knee.”

His hand shoos her away when she tries actually damping the blood with the handkerchief.

“But you’re injured, Byron! I’m not a monster, I’ll help you out with it!”

“Ya dad’s gonna bite ya head off. I dun want that.”

“I don’t give a damn about what Father thinks,” she quickly fires back. “Plus, you’re one big, bad liar! That’s not just a scratch, you idiot!”

He peers over his own shoulder and lifts his arm, only to realize it stings much more than he anticipated. There’s a considerable flow of red coming from the cut which is, unlike what he thought, actually a pretty deep gash. Stupid rocks and their sharp edges. He’ll never understand his girlfriend’s love for those.

“Ah, shit, ya right,” he plainly states as he hisses.

“Keep your arm still. I need to clean it before it gets infected. You don’t want to spend another afternoon hallucinating from an infected gash, do you?”

He looks aside, face heating up. Can’t believe that’s how he spat it out to her too… Talk about something she’ll absolutely bring up to their future children. He can smell it from a mile away. She’ll absolutely never live it down, _ever_.

“Ya really sure ya’ve got _nothing else_ to take the blow? C’mon, ya gotta have some tissues somewhere. Hell, I’ve gotta have some I forgot about on me. Just go through mah pockets.”

“We went over this already, Byron. Neither of us have anything for that. Plus, it’s just a handkerchief. It’ll be just _fine_.”

Just a handkerchief, sure. Someone’s parents got some money, that’s for sure.

“ _Fine_ ,” he ends up spitting anyway because that shit’s starting to hurt like a Granbull and he doesn’t want to become a ragdoll. There’s no way he can win against her when she’s that stubborn. “Do as ya please.”

“Good boy,” she replies with a smile and a hum. “Let’s get down to business, then.”

Rachel first drains as much blood as possible with a portion of the handkerchief, then proceeds to pour some disinfectant on another part of it, then, with an almost quiet “sorry, it’s gonna sting for a little bit”, dabs it onto his wound. Sure enough, it does sting, and he needs to keep it together as to only hiss at the pain rather than scream his head off like he tends to do over the smallest things.

Before long, she’s got his upper left arm wrapped in bandages. Her relieved expression can only tell him the injury really wasn’t bad which, good news, honestly. Better have that than having to struggle their way out of the Underground with him half-functional like he’s had the pleasure to do a couple times. The handkerchief hasn’t been so lucky, however, as it’s sustained a big, brownish red dye job.

“Do you need help to get back to your feet?” She asks, giving him her hand.

“Mah arm’s what’s been injured, not mah leg, silly.”

To prove his point, he rises to his feet and almost doesn’t wobble a little from the bit of blood loss.

“Let’s get back home. I do need to wash this little guy,” she sighs as she stares at the main victim of their spelunking effort, “and I think we both deserve a good snack.”

“Agreed.”

On these words, they make their way out of the Underground and back to the surface, where the bright afternoon sun and the scent of tea soon greet them.

(In the end, Rachel was never able to get all of the blood off the fabric despite their best combined efforts. He had warned her, despite how bad he felt about it being because of _his_ blood.)

**Author's Note:**

> Anyway when are we getting Byron in Masters?  
> I know they recently added Volkner, but I don't want that edgy emo boi in my game, I want Shovel Dad so I can  
> 1\. make a DILF team with Norman and Kukui (yes, he's a dad now, you can't deny it, it's _canon bitches_  
>  2\. reunite him with Roark, because just having the guy mention his dad in some dialogue is kinda sad when KANTO HAS ALL ITS FUCKING NPCS OH MY GOD STOP KANTO PANDERING 2K20  
> 3\. idk, i just like byron okay? i want a steel-type support to work with bronzong and metagross/solgaleo, is that too much to ask? these guys can give us fuckin' volkner when we've already got a shitton of electric-type sync pairs, but when we get a steel-type one it's molayne?? no offense i like molayne and alolan dugtrio but it's yet another offensive sync pair please just give us byron & bastiodon already you know we all want it  
> (oh, and Falkner and Chuck too, please, it's starting to feel weird that Johto has the least amount of characters in the game; although I don't know what 'mon Falkner would even have since his signature 'mon went to Blue of all people, i told you, gen 1 pandering)


End file.
